Keeping Pace with the Expanding Role of Health Coaching

Excerpt

In this issue of JGIM, Scuffham et al. report the results of a trial of population-based health coaching to improve disease management.¹ To better understand these results, it is useful to consider the recent evolution and expansion of the role of health coaching in health care. Health coaching has been defined as a patient-centered process in which a trained coach works with a patient to identify health-related goals, providing education and working with the patient to create action plans to achieve these goals while self-monitoring behaviors to increase accountability.² The conceptual basis for health coaching draws from psychological theories of adult learning and personal development with the aim of creating sustainable behavioral changes based on a patient’s personal values.³ In practice, health coaching often uses methods derived from models, including Motivational Interviewing,⁴ Patient Activation,⁵ Health Belief Model,⁶ and Social Cognitive Theory Communication.⁷ …